

Anyway, for the gifted, willing to study on their own in-depth and for the superficial who just want "the grade", summer school is adequate.

That's not the type of thing you're likely to learn on your own, and it certainly will NOT be something that you can find in a book.and I'd doubt it likely that the superficial treatment they give in summer session will, either. I can remember from my first year of calculus on more than one occasion a problem taking the professor the whole hour to go over. Doing problems - as long as the answers are also given - might be ok. There is plenty of reason to believe that the SKILLS you should learn require a lot longer. To answer your question, there is no reason that the FACTS you learn should take more than about a week or two. Only you can evaluate your knowledge of algebra, geometry, and trig.

What students MIGHT be lacking is a solid knowledge of trigonometry. Differential Calculus is USUALLY the course used to force you to mentally integrate all of your previous math learning.
